Oscar Nominated Documentaries For 2019 Will Screen at Southampton Arts Center

Lovers of docs will be happy to learn that four of the 2019 Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature will be screened over the course of the next month at Southampton Arts Center, including “Free Solo,” the winning film in the category.

Up first on Friday, March 15 at 7 p.m. is Talal Derki’s film “Of Fathers and Sons.” The film follows the filmmaker to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses primarily on the children, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up with a father whose only dream is to establish an Islamic caliphate.

The series continues on Friday, March 29 with Bing Liu’s “Minding The Gap.” Compiled using more than 12 years of footage shot in his hometown of Rockford, Illinois, Mr. Liu searches for correlations between his skateboarder friends’ turbulent upbringings and the complexities of modern-day masculinity. In the end, the filmmaker ultimately weaves a story of generational forgiveness while exploring the precarious gap between childhood and adulthood.

On Friday, April 5, “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” a film by RaMell Ross, will be screened. The film follows Daniel Collins and Quincy Bryant, two young African American men from rural Hale County, Alabama, over the course of five years. The audience witnesses both the mundane and monumental in the two men’s lives, and ultimately experiences a new way of seeing the heat and the hearts of people in the Black Belt region of the U.S. as well far beyond.

Finally on Friday, April 12, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s film “Free Solo” will be screened at SAC. The documantry, an unflinching portrait of the free soloist climber Alex Honnold, follows his exgtensive preparations to climb the face of the world’s most famous rock … the 3,000 foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park … without a rope. It’s an edge-of-your seat thriller and an inspiring portrait of an athlete who exceeded our current understanding of human physical and mental potential.

“One of our goals at Southampton Arts Center is to provide high-quality entertainment to a broad East End audience,” said SAC artistic director Amy Kirwin in a statement. “As such we strive to present thought-provoking, touching, and socially conscious documentary films that many do not have the opportunity to see on the big screen. We are extremely excited to be able to show these incredible documentary features.”

All films begin at 7 p.m. at the Southampton Arts Center, 25 Jobs Lane, Southamton Village. Admission is $10 ($7 Friends of SAC) at southamptonartscenter.org.